


Brother & Sister

by 48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Supernatural, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: 2019 reuploads, Don't copy to another site, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sam Winchester Centric, Sam Winchester Has Powers, Sam Winchester is Jack Kline's Parent, Sam/Lucifer is implied in the background - Freeform, Trans Sam Winchester, Trauma Recovery, but in no way actually mentioned, pure fluff, the tiniest smidgeon of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24841930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue/pseuds/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue
Summary: Sam Winchester adopts psychic children and teaches meditation.
Relationships: Jack Kline & Eleven & Will Byers & Vanya Hargreeves, Jack Kline & Max Mayfield, Sam Winchester & Eleven & Jack Kline & Max & Vanya Hargreeves, Sam Winchester & Jack Kline, Vanya Hargreeves & Will Byers & Jonathan Byers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	Brother & Sister

**Author's Note:**

> fic title a song by blue foundation
> 
> also spoilers for ALPAS eventual endgame stuff if this ever gets back off the ground again.

Things don't start off easy. Not when you've seen too many monsters and murders and gruesome things in the short span of time they've all been dealing with the consequences of their powers and the many awful things coming after them.

But it's over now. They're safe. They're free. And they get to have their lives back now. With all their families, biological and otherwise, all the people they picked up along the way. And the kids can be kids again , not shouldering the fears and cruelties of the adults that made this world what it was.

But that's where the Winchesters have made their mark, Sam likes to think. Taking this town back for humanity and the people who made it theirs.

Saving people. Hunting things. Looking out for each other and holding on for dear life and not letting anyone call you a monster and give up on themselves just because the world decided luck wasn't on your side.

They make their choices. They make their path.

Team Free Will, going strong and with a whole new slew of folks absorbed into their unit.

The family business. Living and thriving, just like old cars and radios and the memory of summers without storms hanging over their heads.

Some days are harder than others.

And some days, they all just sit inside and listen to the rain and make forts and play old vinyls and tell stories about anything other than monsters.

Some days... Some days, all Sam can do is talk, level and calm and understanding and patient, and hopes they all can learn to treat themselves with the same care they treat each other- to let them know they are loved and important and that the world isn't going to break things apart.

"It's okay to just exist." Sam reminds them. "It's okay just to take things in, and know you are enough, and that, for all the overwhelming things out there, we're all just living our lives. That's all anyone can ask of us."

\--

There's something to be said about having kids with powers who rely on you. All of them have their own strengths and weaknesses.

And Vanya isn't a kid, either, but she's still got things to unpack, getting used to her meds and unpacking things with Mia while her entire family goes to group therapy (and individual, which honestly was a long time in coming). But Sam still feels her owes her a lot of work one-on-one, too. Thanks to age and experience and the way the genes fell, she's more powerful than most of them (not as powerful as Jack, but close) and has the most range, and she can shape everything around her easily, but her sound and wave based powers tend to grow unwieldly or overwhelming when she panics or gets angry or there's too much going on once for her to focus (and if she's a little scared of that focus, Sam doesn't blame her... Lucifer made an impression, and none of them are eager to return to the places the Archangel had tried to make his mark). Eleven, however, has almost the opposite problem. She has more control and can brute force herself to victory more than anyone else out of the kids, but she tends to overextend herself physically and mentally to compensate at the expense of her emotional and physical wellbeing, so she needs more pillows and electrolytes and soft objects and sensory things to stim and help her calm down and unwind from her habit of overexertion or feeling trapped, be it physically or mentally, and Eileen and Sam both have made an effort to get everyone to sign when she just doesn't want to deal with noise or feels pressure when she does go nonverbal.

When at their breaking points, El and Vanya latch on to large, open spaces, while Will and Max and Kali tend to seek out smaller nooks and crannies to take a breather- something about cramped spaces makes them feel warmer, feel shielded and safe. Sam himself is more like El and Vanya when it comes to things like that, although he will admit the Impala is one of the few places he can make a small space that doesn't feel as cramped or cold, or remind him of the panic room or the Cage. (It still does, sometimes, but Sam has made compartmentalizing into an art form, and while he's dismantling that slowly, and with a lot of help, some coping mechanisms remain. Thousands of years make the mind compensate in different ways).

Much like Eleven and Vanya, Will tends to withdraw and not talk when he's struggling, so Jack tends to help him get out of his shell to stop him from shutting down or clamming up. He and Vanya also latch on to each other- making music helps calm her down, and music and singing helps Will center himself. Whereas Max tends to be more assertive to the point of being over-enthusiastic or aggressive, but she also is more used to handling everyday life without relying on her powers when she's upset, so she tends to unwind or let off steam through more kinetic activities- basketball, biking, skating, baseball... Things that keep her body going so her mind doesn't race and she doesn't freeze. (Max has always hated freezing- it's what came naturally to her, under stress, and to compensate she taught herself to spit fire and throw fits, but it doesn't change the fact her first instinct is to wait, and that has always terrified her, more than anything else.) Sam talks her, slow and gentle, teaches her how to shoot blanks at empty soda cans or the best ways to climb fire-escapes to watch the stars when she feels she has to go for a walk alone at night to feel free and not hemmed in. Sam walks with her then, or jogs extra slow, unless she's skating and then he can jog with his extra-long legs just to keep up. It's strange, how they've only known each other for less than a year, and yet in some ways, they are alike that way. Running or dodging and adapting and only facing things head on when not given another choice... Then again, evasion comes easily, when you learn to keep secrets young... And while Sam doesn't always know why Dean's brotherly methods that worked best with him when they struggled with certain aspects of their childhood, he does admit keeping busy like this seems to make Max feel more like she's calling the shots and making headway on her own terms... That, and self-defense is necessary for all of them. While Sam won't make any of them choose a life that isn't theirs, if they want to learn to defend themselves, he and Dean know what they are doing there. And if having physical means to fight back instead of struggling with mental abilities makes Max feel more grounded and safe under pressure, than that's something Sam knows how to adapt to... And if he's honest, Jack's a little like that, too, latching on to others, mimicking and imitating and finding physical, repetitive tasks to exert himself with when his powers are something he wants to distance himself from, although his self-hatred with that has thankfully waned, and he trusts his wings and grace and soul and innate sense of goodness and being deserving of life without so much guilt, now, and Sam is grateful they got through to him there. It was horrible, seeing Jack struggle with those things so intensely and not knowing how to fix it, and knowing Sam had almost failed him because he'd failed to give himself empathy and compassion in the same way. But they've learned, and grown, and survived, now. They make it through the other side together, held on tight and didn't let go. And now they can rest. They are safe. They can live and Jack can pursue whatever strikes his fancy, be it art or hunting or investigating mysteries like he so often finds himself doing these days.

Even when accounting for the time travel and collapsing dimensional dilations, Jack is fifteen and has grown up so fast, and often finds himself mentoring them all with Sam using all patience and the same easy-going, hopeful optimism he's always latched on to, even as a child. And if Sam and Cas and Dean still have to fear his bouts of fearing himself or self-loathing, the other kids all find themselves joining together to bolster his spirits and remind him he has to be just as kind to himself as he is to them- reminding him he's allowed to make mistakes and be a kid, just like the rest of them. (Much like Sam had to have Jack teach him, once, however accidentally. They had to look after each other, and you can't be an example of keeping yourself safe and happy if you don't walk the walk and serve as an example. That's half of what parenting is- giving your kids enough structure to thrive but enough freedom to be themselves in a safe environment, and while that wasn't always possible- not with Lucifer, not after everything- Sam tried his best, and he hopes it's been enough). It's hard, learning to forgive yourself, or to realize the sins you've tried to atone for aren't sins at all, just the echoes of people not telling you you are enough on your own, and you can learn, and grow, and be free, and learning along the way and doing your best is all anyone can ask of you. (You cannot be perfect, not all the time- all that matters is you acknowledge your mistakes and try not to repeat them, to acknowledge harm when it is done and doing better, next time.)

Back in his Stanford days, if someone had told Sam he'd be teaching people to deal with the very things he'd feared the most about himself most of his life and making that freakshow not a terrifying thing to be suppressed but something to be at peace with, he probably would have called them a monster and run even farther away (if he hadn't defaulted to the "shoot first, ask questions later" tactics ground into him from his childhood that he'd taught himself to overlook).

But things change. He's changed, just like Jack and Dean and Cas and everyone else has, these days.

And it's less lonely, knowing there's so many innocent, good kids and teens out there, growing up and being themselves, healing from the things people tried to make them into.

Sam understands that all too well.

And someone has to look after them. They're all in this together.

\--

Melding three realities into one consistent one does have some upsides.

For one, having 2019 tech in the eighties means that Eleven has discovered both Jack's gameboy and Animal Crossing, and is having a blast fishing for Coelcanth in the rain and catching tarantulas and scorpions.Â 

Mike might tease her that they can do that in real life already, but there's something about a world, insular and entirely in Eleven's control, that remains soothing.

\--

If someone told Vanya she'd be joining a punk band when she was a child, she wouldn't have believed it.

Maybe given them a sad, shy smile and thought herself too shy or limited in the act of pursuing anything that daring.

But she finds that she likes the way the amp and the subwoofer to magnify her violin and "shred strings," as Klaus calls it (while Fives rolled his eyes and Allison claps anyway).

And there's something to be said about the way Nancy's vocals tie into Jonathan's drumline or Will playing piano or Steve playing bass, and she likes their practice sessions when they all put on rock music that she's only ever heard blasting from Klaus's room and let it hum throughout the warehouse they made their band's base, a nice, relaxed place outside the worries of the world that sometimes gets her on edge.

Their cover of "Should I Stay or Should I Go" also happens to be one of their best instrumental hits.

And when Eleven, Will, Eight, and her get together, they can make the weather change and the lights shine brighter and the instruments and their players fly and dance in the air, unhindered and free, and that, more than anything, reminds them their powers are theirs to control, and they can make what they like of them.

That is, when Eleven isn't hanging out with Lucas and Max and Dustin and Steve and Jack and Owen and Jacob, helping them zoom around in the air with skateboards and scooters. (And Sam has promised them a trip to Cali to teach them all surfing- especially Max, who misses the waves, and Vanya finds herself looking forward to that trip, too... Especially since she enjoys Jessica's company, and she's been anxious to get back to Stanford and finish her degree. Maybe she'll follow and find her path the same, seeing as she's a lot better at archiving than she thought, and Donna and Jody and Hopper all say she isn't half-bad when it comes to legal research. She'll admit, it's nice having something for herself outside of music, something that she chose to pursue that wasn't influenced by anything else because she had to the space to look for it... Although being friends with Jess helped her realize her passion for the subject.)

When things get stressful again, deep breathing, book clubs, D&D and LARPING sessions with Charlie and Dean joining in, and group trips to go fly fishing when piling into the Impala or Castiel's beat up truck helps with keeping things calm, too.

\--

When Sam, Kelly, Cas, Jody, Donna, Bobby, Mary, Hopper, or Joyce aren't watching the kids or hosting (and they all agree Mike's basement doesn't count, seeing as the parental supervision is negligible and their defenses against the supernatural or government surveillance is severely lacking), Dean takes point, although he usually ropes in Alex and Claire and Ellen and Jo into things, too. (Mia sticks around, too, although that's only for when Gabriel is around, seeing as Dean has mellowed over the years and kicked the alcohol habit or his fear of most supernatural things when proven to be not-monsters, and has grown just as protective as anyone else over the new additions to the family. Gabriel, for all the good he's done, is still more babysat than the kids, seeing as none of the adults or angels can trust him to be a decent influence considering his sense of humor and carefully cultivated not-quite-a-mask of immaturity that never quite kicked the bucket, because who else would Gabriel be if not himself?)

Dean's favorite go-to with the younger ones is to watch cartoons or organizing some sport out in the open grassy stretches by the woods, or in the cornfields in the off-season, usually when Sam is the one making runs to the precinct, hunting for stray cases every once in a while, or supplies with Cas for lunch and coffee.

Retirement isn't something he'd see for himself, either, but he finds being an uncle isn't that bad.

\--  
One of the perks of having powers, is that when they visit the nearest telescope and observatory, Jack flies them all to get a view of the stars, no oxygen necessary.  
There may be some drawbacks to having so much power, but there are perks, too.  
Like late night visits to aquariums and beaches and hidden alcoves in libraries, for one.

But there are a few things they have to watch out for- namely making real lightsabers and having force battles, which Jack starts but El instigates when she decides she wants to emulate the Rebellion fighting the Empire and they all collectively decide this is the best course of action. It doesn't help that they all had gotten hyped up on soda and sugar and popcorn after they'd all crowded out of the Impala when parked at the nearest drive-in theater.

Then, Sam has to put his foot down- well, more like throw up a hand to cancel the other powers out- and teach the kids that while they can levitate things, hitting each other with said levitating objects (with Dustin and Lucas sporting pseudo-blasters), or having duels with transformed laser sticks is not a safe game.

(Eventually, they settle for making their own robotics and making their own R2D2, a compromise which doesn't upset anyone.)


End file.
